Epiphany 6C, 13 February 2022. The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz
Jeremiah 17:5-10. In the year of the drought it is not anxious and it does not cease to bear fruit.
1 Corinthians 15:12-20. The first fruits of those who have died.
Luke 6:17-26. Blessed…blessed…blessed…blessed….Woe…woe…woe…woe.
O God of the Sabbath, grant us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.
This morning I want to call your attention to some powerful connections between our readings from Jeremiah and Luke, but I think I’ll leave the brain-scrambling passage in 1 Corinthians about resurrection and the dreadful cantata text for another sermon! The prophet Jeremiah is addressing his nation with judgment and lamentation for abandoning its covenant relationship with the Holy One. He says the ways in which the nation has missed the mark of Love are engraved on the hearts of the people because their obstinate behaviors go so deep; they are marred to the core (heart). Jeremiah uses the metaphor of a dried-up shrub to describe the nation that has turned toward its own strength and away from the Holy One. Jeremiah says the nation is so compromised it will not even see when relief comes, when good comes. It’s an ancient way of saying, “They wouldn’t know a good thing if it knocked them in the head.”
Don’t be like a dried-up shrub, Jeremiah is saying to the nation. Transplant yourself near to the eternal springs of the Holy One. Be like a well-watered tree. Trusting in the Holy One is like a tree transplanted near a stream of water so that it doesn’t fear heat or drought, and it doesn’t cease to bear fruit. Bearing fruit is an ancient way of describing visible deeds of loving kindness, works of right-relationship with neighbors and with God. “Be like that,” Jeremiah says. “The Holy One will search and evaluate the heart of the nation according to the fruit of the nation’s practices, the nation’s deeds of loving kindness,”
Sadly, what is left out of our short reading is Jeremiah’s reminder to keep the Sabbath holy. “For the sake of your lives,” he says, “rest on the Sabbath.” Refrain from productive and industrious behaviors one day a week. And the chapter concludes with these sad words. “But they did not listen; they stiffened their necks and would not hear or receive instruction.” The whole point is deeds of lovingkindness. When we get cut off from the Source of All Being, deeds of lovingkindness are hard to do and impossible to sustain. In this passage of Jeremiah, curse and blessing are consequences of choices the people made. Curses and blessings are not punishments and rewards; they are descriptions of wrong-relationship and right-relationship. The Torah and the Prophets were clear that those who were poor, hungry, alienated, or needy in any way were deserving recipients of generous and caring responses from the Holy One and the people.[1] When the nation didn’t care for them, the nation was not in right-relationship with God.
What we miss when we only hear verses 5-10 of this chapter, is the command to keep the Sabbath holy as the only antidote that will remedy sin, which in this case is all about amassing wealth and power unjustly and disregard for those who are poor. Jeremiah proclaims that the remedy for sin is Sabbath, when our attention rightly turns from our work to God’s delight. That’s seems so countercultural, doesn’t it? The remedy for sin is not punishment and it’s not hard labor, it’s Sabbath rest. Sabbath rest restores and repairs our connection to God (or Love), because sin is estrangement or separation from God (or Love). Jeremiah sees that the erosion of the holiness of Sabbath has become a life-and-death issue that threatens the future existence of the people.[2] That’s still true for us in the early 21st century. In his book called The Sabbath, Abraham Joshua Heschel taught, “Spiritual life begins to decay when we fail to sense the grandeur of what is eternal in time….Sabbath is time to notice ethereal beauty…[and] Sanctity is a quality we create.”[3]
When I look at our Gospel passage and look back to the verses at the beginning of Luke, Chapter 6, I notice that Jesus has been talking about Sabbath, reminding some who disagree, that Torah commands care for those who are suffering even on the Sabbath. When I encounter the Lukan beatitudes in the light of Jeremiah’s teaching, I hear blessings described as being like a well-watered tree and woes or curses as being like a dried-up shrub – descriptions of needing the Holy One versus relying on one’s own limited strength. In our Gospel portion for today, Jesus has been speaking to his twelve apostles, a great crowd of disciples, and a great multitude of people from all kinds of places, who were seeking relief and restoration. Never one to shy away from hyperbole, Luke writes, “All in the crowd were trying to touch him, for power came out from him and healed all of them.” Then, Luke says, Jesus looked up at his disciples. Notice that he’s not calling out to the great multitude, and he’s not addressing just his travel team of twelve apostles. Jesus is speaking to those who wish to learn from him. Disciple means learner; and Luke means for us, his listeners, to be among that group.
Jesus looked at his disciples and declared God’s blessing on those who were poor, hungry, bereft, excluded, and defamed for his sake, or for humanity’s sake, which is another way to understand the Son of Man. It’s a peculiar honor, indeed. Notice, though, that in Luke’s account, Jesus was speaking directly to the suffering that Jesus’ disciples were enduring on account of following him. I hear Jesus saying, “God bless you for getting into this with me.” You who are poor, yours is the realm of God (not in the future, but right now). You will be fed, you will experience joy, and you will experience the heaven of God, which is another way to say shalom, deep peace or well-being. “God bless you for putting everything on the line. And woe to you who are rich and full, scoffing at the naivete or laughing at the foolishness of practicing lovingkindness to the point of poverty and hunger, sorrow, and slander.” You will not experience the true joy of the Realm of God until you engage in extreme generosity. It’s not a prediction; it’s a description. I think Jesus was looking up at those people, too. They were also among the disciples in those earliest days. That matters to me because some of us certainly are now among the disciples who are being challenged by Luke’s critique of amassing personal wealth that is not used for the benefit of the community, so that each gives according to ability, and each receives according to need.
Theologian Mark Davis describes Luke’s beatitudes as describing the difference between is and ought.[4] How it is, a yawning gap between over-resourced and under-resourced, and how it ought to be, which is no gap at all. Unfortunately our lectionary cuts the reading off in Jesus’ mid-thought. “Woe to you when all speak well of you,” Jesus said. “But,” he continued, “I say to you that listen, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you….be children of the Most High, who is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. Be merciful just as God is merciful.” In other words, even when you are on the receiving end of the bad behavior of others because of your faithfulness to the Love of God, respond with Love. When your enemies suffer, no self-satisfaction, no Schadenfreude, and certainly no violence, respond in Love. (This is hard stuff!)
So Jesus was speaking directly to his disciples, giving them assurance of their blessings to some and giving others instruction for how to participate fully in the blessing. Although Jesus was addressing his followers, there were others within earshot, those from the multitudes who were seeking healing. It occurs to me that maybe we are really not so different at Emmanuel Church – some disciples and learners, others not identifying as Jesus followers but seeking hospitality, in need of healing. Often, we come to church somewhat depleted – emotionally, physically and spiritually. Sometimes we come to church fearful, angry, and betrayed by some circumstance or institution or person in our lives. Sometimes we aren’t fully conscious of our depletion, our fear, our anger, or our hurt. As a crowd (even a small one), we come with varying degrees of awareness about our own unclean spirits or our own dis-ease. Maybe we come seeking pardon and solace; maybe we are curious; maybe we hope to hear a good word or spectacular music, to receive a warm welcome, or to celebrate a baptism! Maybe we hope to make a connection with the Divine, with ourselves, with others. Whatever our hope, we all need healing for our bodies and souls.
It also occurs to me that when a crowd (even a small crowd) of people with unclean spirits and dis-ease get together, there’s bound to be discomfort caused by competing or conflicting needs and depleted resources. And then I think, “Welcome to the Church!” We are a motley crew, maybe not so different from the first ragtag bunches of people who were first drawn to the healing power of Jesus. And if you arrived at this worship service (whether in person or online) hoping that either you are the only one with needs to be met, or hoping that no-one else has needs that you will be asked to meet, you may be in for a rough morning, because God has brought us here not just with one another, but for one another.
But if you arrived at church hoping for a chance to give thanks to God for all the many ways that you are blessed, then you are in luck! This will be a good morning for you. We are going to celebrate Sloane Harper Borawski’s baptism this morning. It’ll be great! We are going to show her that giving thanks to God, celebrating beauty, and resting from work is what this Sabbath day is set aside for. We will welcome her to be a part of our sacrifice of thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is a sacrifice, because we have to release our hold on our woes. We will have to let go for a while of our playing too big or too small, let go of our incessant greater-than/less-than calculators. We will have to open our hands and hearts for healing and pause for Sabbath rest in the truth of our belovedness. Offer to God, today, a sacrifice of thanksgiving, and renew your commitment to observe Sabbath so as to live in Love.
[1] Amy-Jill Levine, “The Gospel According to Luke” in The Jewish Annotated New Testament (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), p. 113. See Deuteronomy 15:11; Isaiah 49:10; Jeremiah 31:25; Ezekiel 34:29.
[2] Patrick D. Miller, “Jeremiah,” in The New Interpreter’s Bible, Vol. IV (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2001), p. 710.
[3] Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Sabbath (New York: Farrer Straus and Giroux, 2005), pp. 6, 14, xiv.
[4] D. Mark Davis, www.leftbehindandlovingit.blogspot.com.